


All shades of pink

by CheapLemonIceLolly



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: (those refer to different relationships!), Bisexual Character, F/F, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Lovers to Friends, Rule 63, Women in the NHL, am I homophobic or do I have a crush on you??, sometimes coming out to yourself is the hardest part
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-01
Updated: 2018-09-01
Packaged: 2019-07-05 14:36:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15865593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CheapLemonIceLolly/pseuds/CheapLemonIceLolly
Summary: “Maybe I’ll just become a lesbian,” she says distractedly.  “Give up men altogether.”She doesn’t even think before saying it - it’s just one of those things, you know, one of those things you say but don’t mean when guys are being particularly shit - but Auston kind of shifts slightly in her seat.  She doesn’t say anything, but Mitch suddenly wonders if that was a weird thing to say, now she, like.  Knows.Mitch has been getting disappointed by guys for as long as she can remember.  Auston can’t relate.





	All shades of pink

**Author's Note:**

> I’m back on my soft queer girl bullshit and having a lot of Big Bi Feelings so I tried to do something with them, I guess? One day maybe I will write rule 63 that doesn’t follow the formula of: one lesbian, one clueless bisexual, and a past stromarner juniors romance, but it is not this day! 
> 
> PS: what do I know about the 2015-16 London Knights? Literally nothing but the roster, obviously. Sorryyyy (not really). There is no significance to the dates in this except to demonstrate the passage of time; I paid no attention whatsoever to the schedule while writing. I just wanted to write about girls! And compulsory heterosexuality (it’s a trap)! And how gender-based socialisation around sex is rubbish and makes a lot of straight sex kind of shit for women! But this is more sweet than that sounds, I swear.
> 
> Title from crush by Tessa Violet

_December 2015_

Mitch is convinced world juniors is going to be amazing.

She’s already been drafted, so there’s no pressure. She plays for the best country in the world, so she’s _probably_ going to top off an amazing year with a gold medal. And she’s the only girl on the team so she gets a room to herself.

Technically “fraternising” is against the rules, Team Canada players are good wholesome young people with strong family values, blah blah blah. But fuck that. Mitch is eighteen, she’s got a super convenient teammate boyfriend, and like hell she’s going to waste her private hotel room _not_ having tonnes of super convenient teammate sex in between games and practices.

She’s just glad nobody thought to get her a chaperone, or worse, to save money by pairing her up with Team USA’s one girl player. She doesn’t really know Auston Matthews, but she’s pretty sure sexiling your roomie isn’t a great way to make a new friend.

Anyway, they’re playing USA tomorrow, but right now she’s not thinking about Matthews. She’s thinking about her sweet private room and how she’s been patiently indulging Dylan’s fixation on her barely existent boobs for the last twenty minutes, but he’s finally started toying with the drawstring on her sweatpants and shit’s about to get real. Dylan’s idea of foreplay isn’t exactly mindblowing, but boys like boobs, they can’t help it. Mitch is willing to wait for what she really wants. That’s just being a good girlfriend, right?

Besides, they’re both really good kissers and Mitch really, really likes kissing, so she’s honestly half the way there already.

So when Dylan gets her sweatpants off and gets a hand between her legs she’s pretty wet already, and he says “Wow,” in this awed little voice against the corner of her mouth, like he’s some kind of sex god for getting her in that kind of state without even touching her, and she’s like, yes, finally, let’s fucking _go_. And then he pulls back just enough to look at her with those pretty half-lidded eyes and says:

“Guess you don’t need that, huh?”

It’s like peak hour traffic screeching to a halt in Mitch’s head, basically. Like, she didn’t think it was possible to find sex disappointing before any sex had even _happened_ , but here it is, an amazing new low.

But what can she say? Um, _no_ , get down there and put some effort into it, you asshole? He’s already ditching his pants and unwrapping a condom. And it’s not like she doesn’t _like_ this part, it’s just...she’s watching him unroll the condom with those long, beautiful fingers and it’s such a waste she feels like she might cry.

No, okay, she has to say something. Take control of her own pleasure, right? Smash the patriarchy or whatever.

“Stromer,” she says, and he picks that exact moment to roll on top of her and kiss the side of her neck, right on that one fucking super sensitive spot that makes her scalp tingle and her toes curl, so instead of sounding like a question it comes out all needy and _breathy_ like she’s moaning his name. Which is _so_ not going to help with the whole sex god delusion thing.

“Yeah,” he tells her, “I’ve got what you need,” which is both excruciatingly embarrassing and _not fucking true_ , at least not yet anyway, but before she can tell him any of that he’s kissing her again.

He fucks his tongue into her mouth as he’s sliding it in, and it’s so cheesy, but she’s fucking weak so she moans anyway and wraps her legs around him. He’s so much bigger than her she can’t even get her hand in between them so she can get herself off.

But the closeness is nice, the warm skin on skin feeling and the dumb little noises he’s making in her ear, like she’s the best thing that’s ever happened to him. 

She thinks she might be a little bit in love with him, in that fleeting way that’s probably not worth telling him about. Like this isn’t going to last beyond junior hockey, but she’s going to look back on it fondly when she’s old and, like, tell her teenage daughter about him when she starts dating or something. Don’t settle down right away, she’ll tell her, make sure you find time to fool around with someone cute who makes you laugh, too. 

Although obviously it’s better if he actually knows what a clitoris is for. Christ.

“You’re amazing,” Dylan sighs, and he looks so cute and goofy when he’s all come dumb that she knows she’s not going to stay mad about it.

But god fucking damn it, it’d be nice not to be responsible for her own orgasm, just for once.

*

The game the next day does not go well.

Dylan scores and Mitch doesn’t, which is just...poetic, really. But it doesn’t matter anyway, because they lose 4-2. And to add insult to injury, Matthews scores the completely unnecessary, icing-on-the-cake fourth goal for the USA, so that night all the media coverage of the game (in the english speaking media, anyway) makes a huge deal about how America’s girl is clearly better than Canada’s girl. Which is just...they’re nothing alike, as players. The only reason anyone would compare them is because they share a gender.

Mitch tries to complain about it to Dylan, but he doesn’t get it.

“Well okay, we’ll just have to make sure you score more than her from now on,” he says, as if the problem is Matthews being _better_ than her and not the stupid made up girl rivalry bullshit. Mitch doesn’t want to compete with Auston Matthews. Or at least not any more than she wants to compete with anyone else on her team. Not just because she’s a girl.

All in all, this tournament isn’t going at all how she pictured it.

Dylan tries going down on her to cheer her up after the pity party when they get knocked out of the quarter finals, when they’re both so drunk Mitch can’t feel much below her neck. She wonders if he had to get wasted to feel brave enough to give it a shot, and feels kind of guilty for getting mad at him earlier.

Propping herself up on her elbows to watch is pretty hot, but she’s too numb with cheap contraband vodka to get anywhere, and he gives up and falls asleep on her thigh before very long. She combs her fingers through his hair and sighs.

“You’re useless,” she says fondly, riding this wave of sudden drunk sentimentality, “But I’m gonna miss this next season.”

Dylan just snores.

*

(She tries to get Dvo and Chucky to dish on Auston after the tournament but they’re boys so they’re useless too. It’s weird, because hockey players are usually fucking gossips, but maybe they’re just awkward about talking about a girl to a girl. Don’t want to say the wrong thing.

“She’s prettier than I expected,” Mitch says fake casually. “Like, sick hockey player, obviously, but you know. Hot, right?”

“I didn’t notice,” Dvo says, blank-faced, which is _clearly_ bullshit. 

“You’re pretty too,” Cliff tells her loyally. Mitch is well aware she’s got a pointy nose and no boobs and a mouth that’s too big for her face, not pretty by any traditional definition, but she makes it work anyway so she doesn’t really care. She punches him affectionately on the arm.

“Thanks buddy,” she says. “But I’m not _jealous_ , I just think she’s hot. Like, objectively.”

“Didn’t know you swung that way, Marns,” Chucky drawls, but Mitch knows bait when she hears it, so she doesn’t rise.

Anyway, she doesn’t mean it like _that_. You don’t have to be attracted to a person to know that they’re hot. Just because dudes are all too repressed to admit they think other guys are good looking. Mitch is above that.

The sick hockey player part’s what she’s thinking about later that year when the Leafs win the draft lottery, though, obviously. That and having a girl teammate, which is going to be awesome. How pretty the teammate is doesn’t really factor in.)

 

_November 2016_

It’s only one time with Marty. 

It’s pretty early in the season and they’re still getting to know each other, but they’ve just clicked super fast and it’s kind of exciting that he seems to like her company as much as she likes his. All the other guys treat her like their annoying little sister, which she totally plays up to, for sure, but Auston’s younger than her and nobody seems to treat _her_ like a baby. Probably because her resting bitch face makes her look like she’d kick their asses if they tried. The bitch face thing is just a cover, though, Mitch has picked that much up already. She’s actually a goof under all the good hair and calculatedly disinterested looks. Mitch thinks sometimes that being the only two girls on the team lets her see a side of Auston the guys don’t get to see, which is cool.

But anyway, this isn’t about Mitch and Auston. It’s about Mitch and Marty.

He’s probably too old for her, really, but that’s kind of the appeal in a way. Someone older and like, _experienced_ , who probably knows what he’s doing better than younger guys who learned everything they know about foreplay from bad porn. And anyway, he’s hot and he’s nice to her and he doesn’t seem to mind the chirping he gets from the rest of the team about Mitch having a killer crush on him. She’s pretty sure they’ll be able to stay buddies after, so. 

One night on the road she trails him back to his hotel room, chattering aimlessly at him until he invites her in to watch a movie before curfew. Ten minutes into Sully (which, honestly, is so serious and boring she’s about to fall asleep anyway) she leans over and kisses him, experimentally, on the cheek.

“What was that for?” he says, smiling at her, a little bewildered. Mitch answers by kissing him again, on the mouth this time, and then he gets the idea and things, like. Follow their natural course, or whatever.

The sex is…

Well, it’s fine.

The kissing is great. Mitch loves kissing and the way Marty’s so big he can just kind of of move her around where he wants her is awesome. He’s really sweet with her, gentle and careful and that’s great, it really is, just...well, maybe he’s trying a little too hard to be gentle, is all. She may be kind of small for a hockey player, but she’s not all that small for a _woman_ , and she’s definitely not fucking made of glass.

But, like, it’s fine. It’d be stupid to get frustrated at him for being _too nice_.

Still, she would like to get off at some point, even if she has to take matters into her own hands. And hey, maybe if she gets the party started herself he’ll stop painstakingly, tenderly undressing her and actually do something.

But when she slips her hand into her underwear he actually takes hold of her wrist and pins her hand to the bed, just for a second. It’s gentle but it still pulls her up short.

“Why don’t you leave that to me, eh?” he murmurs. And she thinks, well, okay. He probably knows what he’s doing, right? And she is really, really into him.

Her dumb crush dies somewhere around the fifteen minute mark of the most uninspiring oral she’s ever experienced. And she’s counting that time Stromer fell asleep.

“Hey,” she says, combing her fingers through his hair to get his attention. “Have you got a condom?”

Marty looks up. “You in some kind of hurry?” he says, and smiles all lopsided, which, okay, revives the dumb crush a little bit maybe. He’s really cute.

“Well, I mean, it’s almost curfew,” Mitch says anyway, and sticks her tongue out at him. “Matts is probably wondering where I am.”

“You are such a little shit,” Marty laughs. She gives him a _what are you going to do about it_ kind of look, and he abandons his mission to put her to sleep with his tongue to crawl back up the bed and kiss her, which is definitely a lot more fun, and maybe she doesn’t get any orgasms out of it but the rest of the night is better, at least.

She doesn’t bother asking if she can stay over afterwards, though.

*

When Mitch gets back to her own room, Auston’s in the bathroom brushing her long hair out before bed. Mitch goes in and sits on the closed toilet drumming her feet on the tiles. She feels...antsy. Restless. Sex is always like that, it gets her all keyed up and then doesn’t go anywhere, so she’s left with all this energy and no outlet.

Auston ignores her for half a minute, and then says, “Did you have fun?”

“Hm,” Mitch says, noncommittal. “He tried to make me watch Sully.”

“Tried?”

“Well, I might have had something else in mind,” Mitch grins. Auston snorts.

“Not that I’m judging or anything,” she says, “but are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“Probably not,” Mitch admits, swinging her feet. “Don’t worry, it is _not_ going to happen again.”

Auston’s eyes dart towards her in the mirror, sharp, though her voice is carefully light. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, yeah of course. Just not…” she laughs uncomfortably, feeling a little mean - she still _likes_ Marty, after all - but she can’t really think of a better way to put it, so she scrunches her face up and says, “...not really worth a second go?”

Auston relaxes. “Oof. Yikes.”

“Well, that’s just how it is with guys sometimes, right?” Mitch shrugs. “Nice but...ineffectual.” Auston doesn’t look away from the mirror, frowning at her reflection while she finishes her braid.

“I wouldn’t know,” she says.

Mitch blinks at her. “Oh, sorry,” she says, feeling awkward. Now Mitch thinks about it, she’s never seen her pick up before, never heard her mention a boyfriend or gossip about guys at all. They usually have more interesting stuff to talk about. But maybe... “Um,” she says carefully, “are you, like, saving yourself for...for marriage or…?”

Now Auston does look at her, making a face. “For _what?_ ”

“Well I don’t know,” Mitch says. “I just meant...if you haven’t…” Auston just looks at her until she scrunches her face up. “Sorry, I don’t get it. You’re too hot for it to be an accident.”

“For...what to be an accident?” Auston splutters, and her face turns bright pink.

“I mean look at you,” Mitch says helplessly, gesturing at...all of that. Auston’s wearing an oversized tshirt that’s half hanging off one broad shoulder and that’s it, and everything about her is gorgeous. Mitch would kill for legs like that. “It can’t be that you don’t get, like, millions of offers. I just mean...if _you’re_ a virgin it’s gotta be on purpose.”

“I didn’t say I was a virgin,” Auston says, still blushing, and she goes back to braiding her hair. “Just that I wouldn’t know about being with guys.”

Mitch is lost. She scratches the back of her head and opens her mouth but she doesn’t know what to say so she just stays where she is, sort of staring confusedly at Auston with her mouth hanging open until Auston sighs and rolls her eyes.

“I’m gay, dude.”

_Oh._ Mitch says nothing for like a full ten seconds while her brain tries to process this information. Finally she says, at a slightly higher pitch than normal. “Oh.”

Auston turns around to face her properly and leans against the sink, frowning. “Don’t be weird about it,” she says. There’s this note in her voice that’s somewhere between warning and pleading.

“No, hey, I’m not,” says Mitch, jumping to her feet. She goes over and hugs Auston, just to show how not weird she is, and feels her tense up a little at the touch. “Sorry, I was just...just surprised. But hey, you’re gay, that’s cool. That’s awesome. Congratulations. Thanks for telling me.”

Auston huffs an awkward little laugh, but Mitch feels her shoulders relax slightly, until finally she hugs back.

“You’re such a dork,” she says, annoyed but fond. They hug against the sink for a bit longer, and then she leans back and wrinkles her nose. “You stink like sex, though.”

“Uh, yeah,” Mitch raises her eyebrows. “I was _trying_ to take a shower but _someone’s_ beauty routine’s taking up the whole bathroom.”

Auston gives her a little shove. “Yeah, well, we can’t all be naturally adorable,” she says, and her smile’s edging past her regular, careful one and into the dumb toothy one, which is Mitch’s favourite. Turns out gay Auston’s just the same as didn’t-know-she-was-gay Auston, so. Mitch thinks they’re going to be fine.

She keeps thinking about it, though. She showers and gets into bed and she’s still turning it over and over in her head. She sneaks a glance over at Auston, who’s sitting up in bed absorbed in her phone, the bluish light highlighting her cheekbones.

“So,” Mitch says, propping herself up on one elbow. “You’re gay.” Auston doesn’t look up from her phone, but she smiles slightly.

“Yep,” she says. And then, because she knows Mitch too well, “What d’you want to know?”

Mitch ponders for a moment and then says, “How does that...you know. Work.”

“How does what work?”

“ _You_ know.”

“Buddy. If you can’t imagine having sex without a guy sticking his dick in you, you can’t have had much good sex,” Auston says wryly.

Mitch can’t exactly argue with that, but she feels disloyal saying it out loud, so she just makes an awkward face, sucks a hissing breath between her teeth. Auston laughs.

“Okay, but like...I’m not an idiot, I know about other stuff. I don’t mean how do two girls get each other off, I mean... I don’t know, how do you…negotiate stuff. Like how do you know when you’re both done?”

It’s been troubling her all through her shower. Like, sex usually reaches a natural end point when the guy comes, right? If they had to wait for _her_ orgasm, sex would never actually end. Which would be less fun in reality than it sounds in theory.

“I don’t know, usually when she passes out,” Auston grins, and it’s so outrageously fucking cocky, Mitch forgets to feel awkward; she squawks a loud laugh and throws a pillow at her.

“Shut up, you’ve never made anyone pass out!”

Auston just shrugs and smiles enigmatically, and Mitch is torn between outraged hilarity and the little voice in her head that says _just imagine that though_. Her toes curl out of sight under the sheets.

“But what about when the girl you’re with doesn’t...you know,” she says. “When you can’t...get her there?” Auston shakes her head and sinks back against the pillows, adjusting the one Mitch threw at her behind her head.

“That’s...never happened?” she says. Mitch makes a dismissive noise, but Auston frowns at her. “No, I’m not being a dick. Like, that’s the whole point, why would you stop before you got to that?”

Mitch doesn’t even know how to feel about that answer. She knows from experience that it’s not that fucking easy; just going at it for as long as it takes doesn’t actually get her off, it only leaves her bruised and over sensitive and irritated. There’s only so long you can lie there and make encouraging noises while you stare at the ceiling before it stops being fun.

“Maybe she’s just faking it,” she says, a little annoyed. “So you won’t feel bad.”

“I mean, maybe,” Auston shrugs. “I don’t really think so though. Wait, are you saying you don’t get off every time you have sex?”

Mitch snorts. “Yeah, right,” she says. “ _Every_ time.”

Auston stares at her.

“That’s not weird or anything,” she says defensively. “Plenty of girls can’t relax enough to come with someone else. It’s actually really common.” She read about it in an old Cosmo in the waiting room at the dentist, once.

“Yeah…” Auston says slowly. “No, that sounds...do you, like...ever?”

“Sure,” Mitch shrugs. “Just not with guys.” She can get herself off in five minutes flat if she wants to. She knows there are people who don’t come at all because she looked it up once, to find out if she was defective or something, but it’s not that, with her. Just other people can’t get her there. She’d sort of put it down to guys being incompetent in bed, or just completely self absorbed, until she read that Cosmo article.

“Sorry,” Auston says, making a face. “That sucks.”

Mitch looks down at her hands. She’s never actually thought of herself as hard done by before; even if she has had a lot of frustrating, unsatisfying sex, it’s not like she’s never got _anything_ good out of it. It feels weird to have someone feel sorry for her now, like the good bits don’t mean as much somehow.

“I don’t know,” she says, forcing a laugh. “Passing out all the time just sounds kind of exhausting.” She raises her eyebrows at Auston. “Actually, that’s probably really bad for you, you know. Mine’s actually the healthier sex life, so.”

“Goodnight, Marns,” Auston says dryly, and turns out the light.

Mitch tries not to think about Auston’s sex life while she falls asleep.

*

Mitch is determined not to let things be weird with Marty, so she claims the seat next to him on the plane home the next day. She’s not going to bring it up at all, just be normal, but before she can say anything he tilts his head in close to hers and says, voice low, “Hey, about last night.”

Okay, so they’re having this conversation. She can do that. It’s not the first time she’s had to be nice about bad sex.

“Um,” she says, “yeah. We should…”

“We should probably not do that again,” Marty says before she can finish. Mitch blinks. “I mean, I’m kind of too old for you, and it could make things weird for the team, and I know neither of us want that.”

“Oh,” Mitch says. Her voice comes out all small and surprised. She should be relieved she’s not having to say any of this herself, but somehow she feels…weird, like she’s being told off or something. “Yeah, no, I was thinking the same thing,” she says.

“Well, that’s good then. And, you know, it’s not because...I mean, you were great,” Marty says, and it’s so much the kind of reassurance Mitch gives herself to guys who were...definitely not great, that she feels her face go hot.

“Um, thank you.”

This was not how she expected this to go at all. She forces a smile and holds out her hand for a fistbump. Her facial expression feels rigid and unnatural.

“Still bros, though?”

“Yeah, of course,” says Marty. He puts one arm around her for an awkward sideways plane hug, which is nice, and then kisses the top of her head, which makes her feel like a little kid. She laughs, more out of embarrassment than anything.

“Um, cool,” she says awkwardly. “I’m gonna, uh, I said I’d sit with Matts.” It’s a complete lie but all she wants right now is to get out of here. She feels like she wants to laugh some more but also maybe burst into tears? Which doesn’t make sense at all, it’s not like she’s being dumped or anything, not like anything’s happening that she didn’t want to happen. “But I wanted to check in, so. Now I’ve done that I’m gonna...um.” 

She gets up, does this incredibly stupid little wave, and walks down the aisle as quickly as she can until she finds Auston and Willy sitting together near the front. Auston takes one look at her and shoves poor Willy half out of his seat.

“Girl time,” she says. “Move.”

Willy complains but he moves to the empty seat in front so Mitch can curl herself into the spot next to Auston and pull her knees up to her chin. Auston nudges her lightly.

“Wanna talk about it?”

Mitch flashes her biggest, brightest, definitely not teary smile and says, “Nope,” so Auston leaves it alone. There are times her dedication to being chill about everything is annoying, but right now it’s a relief. 

Mitch feels embarrassed and small and stupid. Marty probably thinks he let her down easy or something, probably thinks she’s upset right now and, okay, she _is_ upset, but not because she’s, like, in love with him or something, and knowing he probably thinks she _is_...well, it’s upsetting! She tried so hard to make that trainwreck last night good for _him_ , at least, and somehow _she_ ends up the one getting the “you were great” talk. And he’s her friend so it’s not even like she can say, look buddy, you were a really boring lay and I’m just not that torn up about not getting to repeat the experience.

She feels mean even thinking it.

She doesn’t want to dwell on it any more. Auston’s on her phone, so Mitch gets hers out too; seems like a good distraction from stupid men and their stupid assumptions.

Except maybe not, as it happens.

“Overnight tally?” she asks Auston.

“Four dick pics and two requests for nudes,” Auston sighs. “You?”

“I only got three dick pics.” Mitch leans over Auston’s shoulder as she scrolls. “Sucks to be the hot one, eh. Oh, hey,” she says indignantly, pointing, “that guy’s one of mine! He didn’t even take a new photo, that’s just fucking rude.”

Auston snorts. “It’s like they don’t even put effort into sexually harassing people any more.”

Mitch lowers her voice a little. “D’you think if you came out they’d stop sending so many?”

“Nah,” Auston shrugs. “They’d just be, like. Angrier.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Mitch sighs, and then jabs Auston in the ribs encouragingly. “Hey, you might get girls sending you their boobs as well, though, that’d be an upgrade.”

“Oh my god,” Auston laughs, elbowing her back, “I don’t want random girls sending me their boobs.”

“Why not? Boobs are great. I’d love to get random boob DMs.”

Willy’s head pops up over the back of the seat in front. “Why are you guys talking about boobs?”

“Just going through our DMs,” Mitch says. “You wanna see?” Auston holds up her phone with the ugliest extreme close up dick shot open on it and waves it at him, and Willy recoils out of sight.

“Aw, geez,” he says, muffled behind the seat back while the girls crack up. “Warn a guy, what the fuck.”

“Stromer always used to make that face too,” Mitch says gleefully, kicking the back of Willy’s seat. “I started sending him every dick I got in my inbox in Junior cause he didn’t believe it was that bad. Now he rates them out of ten and draws little hats on them and stuff.”

“You guys have a weird relationship,” Auston tells her, raising her eyebrows. Mitch shrugs.

“We’re functional exes. It’s nice.”

“Wait,” says Willy, “people have been sending you dick pics since _Junior?_ ”

“Men are gross, Will,” Mitch tells him sagely. Auston reaches up and pats him on the head.

“It’s true. Sorry, buddy.”

Mitch leans her head on Auston’s shoulder as she goes through and blocks all the dick-senders. She sends the duplicate photos guy to Dylan with the caption: _sent the exact same pic to me AND matts, deduct points for laziness???_

“Maybe I’ll just become a lesbian,” she says distractedly. “Give up men altogether.”

She doesn’t even think before saying it - it’s just one of those things, you know, one of those things you say but don’t mean when guys are being particularly shit - but Auston kind of shifts slightly in her seat. She doesn’t say anything, but Mitch suddenly wonders if that was a weird thing to say, now she, like. Knows.

She doesn’t ask, and Auston doesn’t comment, not even later when Mitch is driving her home from the airport and there’s nobody around to overhear. But maybe she ought to be more careful about stuff like that now.

 

_January 2017_

She doesn’t know if she’s more careful about it, but Mitch definitely feels more sensitive about it after that.

Or...maybe sensitive isn’t the word. Maybe it’s _sensitised_. Like every interaction between Auston and another girl, any girl, stands out to Mitch like it’s lit up in neon. Her attention’s just drawn to it somehow.

It’s weird enough noticing when they’re out late and Auston spends a little longer than strictly necessary talking to the girl with the undercut behind the bar, lowering her voice and her lashes and smiling in this slow deliberate way that even Mitch can feel in her gut from across the room. Or when a girl in a rainbow pride Leafs shirt asks them for a photo when they’re getting lunch together, and Auston laughs her extra-loud nervous laugh at something the girl says that’s too soft for Mitch to hear, and then they’re both blushing in the picture Mitch takes with the girl’s phone.

It’s weird enough suddenly noticing the way she flirts with or looks at or gets flustered by other girls, but also it’s like...Mitch is a girl too. And the most remarkable thing about the way Auston treats _her_ is that it’s not remarkable at all. They’re close, but Auston isn’t any more flirty or blushy with her than she is with, say, Fred or Willy, which is to say: not at all. Mitch is the only other girl on the team, but to Auston she’s just a bro like the guys are.

Which is fine. Mitch is straight, so. It would be stupid to be offended or jealous about Auston not flirting with her, and she’s not, she’s just… _conscious_ of it. Aware.

It’s not like Auston being into girls means she’s into _every_ girl, let alone that she’d be into Mitch. And it’s not like Mitch _wants_ Auston to be into her. That’d be weird, right? Like Marty said when he thought she was in love with him, it could make team stuff all strained, and she doesn’t want that. It’d be awful if one of her best friends got some kind of intense crush on her that she couldn’t reciprocate, and then it made their friendship all unbalanced and awkward.

But all of a sudden Mitch can’t stop thinking about it. About how different it would be if Auston started looking at _her_ the way she sees her looking at other girls sometimes. About the tension there’d be in being road roomies with someone whose face flushed every time she walked in the room, not to mention when she got out of the shower, or changed for bed, or…

Mitch’s heart rate doubles just thinking about it. Her palms feel sweaty.

She’s never thought she might be homophobic before, but she supposes she must be. Why else would she be so preoccupied with Auston like this, with all these lurid daydreams of her lesbian roommate getting all hot and bothered over her when there’s absolutely no evidence she ever would?

It’s dumb. It’s the...the toxic homophobia of men’s hockey culture, or something, obviously more ingrained in her than she thought after all those years of gross locker rooms full of boys. She’s just going to have to resist it.

“How do you resist the toxic homophobia of men’s hockey culture?” she asks Marty seriously over dinner one night. 

They’ve managed to smooth over the whole ill-advisedly-fucking-a-much-older-teammate situation, mostly by Mitch swallowing her pride and refusing to let him make it weird and Marty deciding he’s got to protect her vulnerable rookie heart or whatever by becoming her surrogate dad and personal life coach. Which is in itself a tiny bit weird, but things between them are a lot more comfortable now. Also he’s a much better cook than she is, so the regular dinners are pretty great. 

The best thing about it (apart from the greek lemon chicken she’s currently stuffing her face with) is that when she asks odd things out of the blue like “how do you resist the toxic homophobia of men’s hockey culture?” Marty doesn’t laugh at her, he frowns thoughtfully like he’s really considering the answer.

“Do you mean me personally?”

“I dunno,” Mitch shrugs, poking her dinner with her fork. “Just in general, I guess.”

“Well…” Marty says slowly. “I guess in general I try and remember that there’s nothing strange about wanting to love and be loved. And that who you love doesn’t change who you are. And if someone is a good person then whether they’re gay or not doesn’t make a difference.”

“Right, right,” Mitch says, feeling a little impatient. “And if you can play you can play, I know all that. But like...what if it was a t-- um, a friend. A really close friend, that you spend a lot of time with. Wouldn’t knowing they were gay be different than thinking about some hypothetical stranger?”

Marty does this fond lopsided smile at her, like she’s said something cute. “Not really,” he says in his extra gentle voice. “I mean, when you know someone really well there’s not much that can surprise you about them. And when you care about someone you want them to be happy, whatever that means for them.”

Well that’s so fucking vague that it’s completely useless. None of this is _advice_ , it’s just wishy washy straight people platitudes. And he’s talking like they’re both in on some secret neither one’s willing to say out loud, but Mitch doesn’t think he knows about Auston. As far as she can tell, nobody on the team knows about Auston except her.

Hang on. Unless...

She puts down her fork.

“Wait,” she says. “Do you think I’m coming out to you right now?”

“Um…” Marty’s soft smile falters. “Aren’t you?”

“No! I’m not...why would you…” Mitch splutters, shaking her head. “We had sex! I’m not gay!”

“Okay,” Marty says, holding up both hands. “Okay, I misunderstood. But, I mean, you could be bi, or...or I think there are other ones, I don’t know all the details. Just because--”

“I’m telling you I think I might be _homophobic_ and I feel bad about it,” Mitch says. Which, now she thinks about it, that whole passionate “I’m not gay, how could you think I was gay” outburst is probably another nail in the coffin.

“Homophobic,” Marty repeats, squinting at her.

“Not that it’d be a _problem_ if I was gay,” she backtracks hurriedly. “Like, there’s nothing wrong with it. Being gay is awesome, actually, some of my favourite people are gay. Maybe. I mean it’s possible. But I’m not. If anything, it’d be easier if I was.”

Marty’s brow furrows. “What would be easier?”

Mitch opens her mouth and then closes it again. If she was gay, not being able to stop thinking about how Auston would look watching her get undressed wouldn’t be homophobic, it’d just be, like, a normal crush or something. That’d have its own problems, but at least it wouldn’t make her feel like an asshole.

“Everything,” she says. Marty just scrunches his face up even more.

“I’m confused,” he says.

Mitch picks up her fork and dives back into her dinner, moodily stuffing an oversized piece of chicken in her mouth.

“You and me both, buddy,” she says.

 

_March 2017_

Mitch hasn’t ever seen Auston kiss another girl.

She knows it probably happens, even though she’s pretty sure she doesn’t have a girlfriend or anything. She’s probably super careful about where and when she kisses girls. Or, come to think of it, she must pick up girls to kiss in places that are especially _for_ girls picking up girls, places she doesn’t take Mitch.

Like, of course she doesn't. Why would she invite Mitch to go to a gay bar or something with her, like some kind of straight girl tourist? That wouldn’t make sense. Just because sometimes she looks over Mitch’s shoulder while she’s on Tinder and gives her advice on which way to swipe doesn’t mean she needs Mitch’s approval for whoever she might want to date, or hook up with, or whatever.

Still, Mitch is kind of obsessed with the idea of Auston kissing a girl. What does she look like? Does she make dumb facial expressions, or do that stupid bored pouty face that she thinks makes her look cool right before she leans in? Is she handsy? Does she use too much tongue right away? Or is she _good_ at it, the kind of kisser that keeps you up at night thinking about her mouth?

Not that Mitch is losing sleep over it.

She has this dream once, this incredibly vivid dream about Auston going down on a girl. Well, the other girl isn’t that vivid, just kind of a vague blend of all the girls Mitch has seen her flirt with or check out or whatever, but Auston herself is in that extremely sharp focus only dreams have. Her eyelashes fanned out over her cheek, her tongue alternating soft and pink and hard and relentless, her fingers stroking and exploring and taking this imaginary girl apart.

The perspective’s all unstable the way it is in dreams, where sometimes Mitch is watching it happen from a distance, and sometimes from up close, and sometimes from up _really_ close, like she’s the girl with Auston’s head between her legs. Like she’s the one shaking and gasping and telling her not to stop.

She doesn’t stop, and Mitch comes so hard she wakes herself up.

She lies in bed breathing hard like she’s just been running suicides, and wonders what the _fuck_ is going on.

It’s probably nothing. She just hasn’t got laid in ages, not since that disaster with Marty, and she’s getting a little obsessive about it in weird ways, that’s all. The obvious solution is to find a random guy to meaninglessly hook up with and get it out of her system. That’s not...really her style, but she’s kind of exhausted the options when it comes to guys she already knows and likes, unless she’s going to, like, hit up Willy or something.

That’s a bad idea. Hooking up with a random stranger is better.

But...she doesn’t really want to? Apparently? She sits on Auston’s couch flicking through endless Tinder guys and swipes left on every single one of them because she’s just not feeling it. Auston comes over to offer commentary, which is perfectly normal, except that when she leans over the back of the couch her long hair spills over Mitch’s shoulder and Mitch accidentally swipes through two guys in a row without even seeing them.

“What was wrong with that one?”

“I dunno,” Mitch shrugs, not even knowing what the guy looked like. “He looks too nice.”

It seems like a good enough reason. She’s not looking for nice, here, she’s looking for quick and easy and palate cleansing. Wham, bam, thanks dude, don’t bother calling again. It’s a new approach for her, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

The breath of Auston’s laugh is hot on the side of her neck. “Too nice? What are you talking about? Your entire type is nice.”

“I don’t have a _type _,” Mitch says, squirming in her seat.__

__Auston grins in her peripheral vision. All Mitch can see of her without turning her head is her hair and her mouth, the pink flutter of tongue between her teeth when she speaks._ _

__“Sure you do. You like nice, kinda nerdy good boys who’re sweet to you. It’s cute.”_ _

__“Can you not say _cute_ like you mean _boring?_ ”_ _

__She means it to come off as a joke, but she sounds too tense. Her voice comes out all sharp and brittle and Auston leans back slightly._ _

__“What’s up with you?”_ _

__“Nothing,” Mitch huffs. “It’s just not everyone’s a cool lesbian with an amazing sex life.”_ _

__Auston straightens up. Mitch isn’t looking at her but she feels the warmth of her body disappear just as the instant regret punches her in the chest._ _

__“What’s that supposed to mean?”_ _

__“No, okay, that came out wrong,” Mitch says, scrambling around on the couch to look at her. “Sorry.”_ _

__She feels ten times worse when she sees Auston’s face, hurt and betrayed and trying really hard to smooth it over so Mitch won’t see._ _

__“You _said_ you weren’t going to be weird,” she says, accusatory._ _

__“I’m not!” Mitch insists. “When you think about it, cool lesbian with an amazing sex life is a compliment.”_ _

__Auston isn’t buying it. “Not when you say it like that, it isn’t. It’s not _my_ fault if you think all the guys you hook up with are boring.”_ _

__“I know that, I wasn’t--”_ _

__“I haven’t got an amazing sex life either,” she says defensively. “Like, I’m a mostly closeted lesbian on a men’s hockey team, it’s pretty fucking hard for me too, you know. I don’t exactly get a lot of chances to date.”_ _

__“Oh,” says Mitch. She’s never thought of it like that before. “Does that mean you’re not...seeing anyone?”_ _

__Auston crosses her arms. “Would it bother you if I was?”_ _

__Mitch doesn’t even know the answer to that. It ought to be an automatic no, and it is, in the sense that she’s not disgusted or anything at the idea of Auston having a girlfriend, but also _hell yes_ it bothers her, because...because...because her arms are amazing and the idea of her putting them around someone else makes Mitch feel physically sick. She doesn’t know what’s fucking _wrong_ with her. She opens her mouth and then closes it again, and the silence stretches out and gets loaded real fast._ _

__“Wow,” Auston says flatly._ _

__“ _No_ ,” Mitch goes up on her knees on the couch, gripping the back with both hands like she can somehow convey how much she means it with her whole body. “No, of course it wouldn’t bother me. I’m sorry, I guess…” her face feels hot. “I guess I’m just kind of jealous.”_ _

__Auston narrows her eyes._ _

__“Of me?”_ _

__Sure, Mitch thinks, let’s go with that. She presses her lips together and nods._ _

__“Oh.” Auston seems to deflate slightly. “Well...don’t be. I don’t think the girl on girl dating life is all that different from any other kind of dating life. It all mostly sucks.”_ _

__Mitch smiles at her tentatively. “How would you know?” she says, a gentle tease, and she’s more relieved than she expected when Auston laughs._ _

__“Well,” she says. “I guess everyone’s missing something they want on some level, aren’t they?”_ _

__Mitch doesn’t know what that means, but she’s not really sure if she’s supposed to ask._ _

____

*

Anyway, she’s determined to make sure Auston knows she’s not weird about her being gay, or at least not weird in the way she’s afraid of. The most straightforward way to get that point across seems to be dialling up her natural cuddliness whenever Auston’s around, so she knows Mitch sees her just the same as she always has, everything’s situation normal over here. It’s a great plan. Like, okay, it’s maybe making everything else that’s going on in Mitch’s head a little more complicated, but that’s fine. Friendship is about sacrifice, sometimes.

Auston doesn’t really react. She chirps Mitch for being a clingy a few times, but so does everyone else, especially when she plants herself on Auston’s lap for the first intermission haranguing from Babs during a game at home, one arm around her neck, full gear and all. It’s actually kind of hard to sit on someone when you’re both wearing padded pants, but she’s committed. Mitch takes friendship very seriously. Coach raises an eyebrow at the arrangement but he doesn’t say anything.

“You want someone to find you a teddy bear for second intermission, Mitchy?” says Naz after, flicking a ball of tape at Mitch’s head.

“I wouldn’t expect you to understand women,” Mitch tells him archly, and gets a chorus of jeers back from the room, half aimed at her and half at Naz. “Gotta stick together when we’re surrounded by you fucking animals.”

Auston raises one fist in the air. “Girl power,” she deadpans.

So, you know, it’s going well. Mitch is getting her message across, she thinks. But still, getting absolutely no reaction is...it’s a little annoying. No, annoying isn’t the word, but like...disappointing, in this vague kind of way where she doesn’t exactly know what she wants to happen, but she still feels unsatisfied somehow.

“Cheer up,” says the guy next to her at the bar. “It can’t be that bad.”

They’re in LA, so she doesn’t think he knows who she is, just some random girl in a random club. She’s not really in the mood to be hit on - she’s tired, they beat the Kings but she didn’t score, and she’d be able to drink if she was home, but here in fucking backwards America she’s still underage - but she plays along because...it’s just easier with strangers sometimes. It’s easier to be nice. She’s not Auston; she can’t pull off resting bitch face and she’s not hot enough or big enough to be intimidating.

“How do you know?” she says, already smiling. “It could be that bad.”

The bartender hands over her soda and takes her credit card and Mitch just smiles and smiles at everyone while the dude slides a little closer along the bar.

“If it was you’d be drinking something harder than that.”

“Can’t,” Mitch says, taking a sip, “I’m only nineteen.” There’s nothing actually wrong with anything the guy’s doing or saying, but she’s just getting a _vibe_ , so she turns her shoulder towards him slightly, boxing him out while she waits for her card to come back. He doesn’t take the hint.

“Oh yeah? You want me to get you something? You look grown up enough to me.”

And there it is. _This_ is why she has a nice, boring type, why she doesn’t hook up with randos. Why do men have to make things sound so _gross?_

“Nah, I’m good,” she says. It feels like the stupid smile’s glued to her face. She really wishes she could react to being uncomfortable in literally any other way than acting extra friendly. At least the bartender’s coming back quickly. “Thanks, though.”

“Are you sure? Maybe I can find another way to cheer you up.”

“Uh, sorry,” Mitch says, turning around and scanning the room for a teammate. She spots Auston and Mo standing together a little way off from the group, thank god, looking deep in conversation. “My friends are waiting for me. Bye.”

Mitch makes a beeline for them, hyper aware of the creep’s eyes on the back of her neck.

She goes right up to Auston without hesitating and puts an arm around her neck, pressing her whole body right up against hers. Auston turns in towards her automatically with a soft little noise of surprise. Her hand lights on Mitch’s hip, gentle and steadying but a bit uncertain.

“I need you,” Mitch says, turning her face up to Auston’s which is very close and...and 

Oh wow. 

The creepy guy flies right out of her head. This is _it_. Girl mode, like Auston’s spontaneously forgotten that Mitch is just Mitch and is seeing her as, like, a _girl_. Her eyes are all dark and unfocused and she breathes out sharply against Mitch’s cheek. Mitch is relieved to find it doesn’t give her some kind of homophobic panic attack at all; it’s actually...it’s… _oh_.

She’s always thought Auston was beautiful, but not like this.

“W-what?” says Auston eloquently.

“There was this creepy guy at the bar,” Mitch says, a little breathless. “Pretend to be my girlfriend so he’ll go away.”

Auston stiffens. Her eyes find their focus again, and her hand on Mitch’s hip loses its uncertainty until she actually pushes away from her.

“Okay, no, that’s enough.” She backs into a chair and stumbles. She definitely looks flustered now but it’s not the cute, kind of sexy flustered, it’s more like...half-healed injury giving her trouble on the bench flustered. Perfectly legal goal called back for no reason flustered. Less flustered and more seriously pissed off. Mitch feels a little jolt of guilt that gets swallowed up almost immediately by a flood of embarrassment.

“Enough of what?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Auston says, shaking her head and glaring down at the floor. “Just...I can’t…”

Mo glances back and forth between them quickly and then holds out his arm.

“C’mere Mitchy, I’ll be your fake boyfriend,” he says affably. “Where’s this creepy guy so I can scare him off.” 

He does this exaggerated squinty-eyed glare that makes Mitch laugh, and she gratefully leans in against his side while Auston mumbles something incoherent and walks off with her head down. Mitch watches her go with the same guilty, embarrassed feeling still tugging at her ribcage.

She must be holding onto Mo extra tight, because he says, “Hey, is everything okay?”

Mitch shakes her head and forces a smile, bright and sparkly. “Yeah. I can’t see him any more, guess he must’ve got the message.”

Mo looks like he wants to push, wants to say he was actually asking about things between her and Auston, but Mitch presses her face into his shoulder and he mercifully keeps his questions to himself. She still doesn’t let go for a while, though. And Auston doesn’t come back.

*

She’s already in their room when Mitch gets back to the hotel, sitting on the end of her bed just staring at the wall. Mitch wonders how long she’s been sitting there. She looks miserable, and Mitch fucking hates it.

“Hey,” Mitch says from the doorway. “Are you...are you okay?”

“Um,” says Auston. Her face is doing that complicated thing it does when she gets a stupid question from a reporter and she’s trying not to show how stupid she thinks it is. “Not really, no.”

Mitch doesn’t know what to say, so she doesn’t say anything.

“You know you’re one of my best friends and I love you,” Auston says, not looking at her, “but you make it hard sometimes.”

Mitch has this hysterical urge to say “that’s what he said,” because her stupid brain never saw a tense, uncomfortable situation it couldn’t make a hundred times worse with a dumb joke. She feels her face stretch into an awkward grin even though there’s nothing all that funny. “Ouch,” she says, much lighter than she feels.

“I’m sure it’s a great ego boost feeling like your gay friend’s got a crush on you,” Auston goes on, “but it’s really not that fun for me, so can we just...”

“What are you talking about?” Mitch says, still grinning like a lunatic. “I don’t think you have a crush on me.” Auston just stares up at her until Mitch feels her face turn red. “You don’t. I’d _know_ ,” she says. “I know what you’re like with girls you’re into and it’s different, you’re not like that with me.”

“Right,” Auston says, slowly, like she’s talking to an idiot. “Because we’re friends and we work together and you’re straight, and I didn’t want it to be awkward for you. Like, that’s on purpose.”

“But…” Mitch feels dizzy all of a sudden. This can’t be right. It was just that one moment in the bar, when she took her by surprise, when she made her forget who she was looking at for a moment, not… “No, that’s not possible, that’s…”

“I think if anyone would know, it’d be me,” Auston says. “Why the fuck am I arguing with you about this?” She drags her hands over her face. “Look, it’s okay. I need you to...not be weird about it, so let’s just pretend you haven’t spent all week throwing yourself at me for a joke and I didn’t say any of this and everything will be fine.”

“It wasn’t a _joke_ ,” Mitch says. Her voice comes out small. She _feels_ small, small and confused and off-balance, and it’s like Auston fills up the room; Mitch wants to touch her, to hug her, to explain, but she still barely understands what she’s explaining. She was trying to be a better friend.

“Or to make yourself feel good, whatever,” Auston says. “It doesn’t matter.”

It doesn’t feel, to Mitch, like that’s true at all. It feels like it matters a lot. It feels like she’s been a colossal fucking idiot.

“You have a crush on me?” she says, in a small voice.

Auston looks exhausted, like she’d rather be anywhere but here. “Yeah. But it doesn’t matter, you don’t have to worry about it.”

“Stop saying that. It _does_ matter,” Mitch says, shaking her head with this sense that a lot of things are suddenly falling into place. “You have a _crush_ on me. I think...but...I think I have a crush on _you_.”

It feels like throwing a window open on a darkened room and letting daylight rush in, blinding bright and startling and even a little bit painful, but she can suddenly breathe again. As soon as she says it she knows it’s true, knows that it explains everything. Holy shit. Of _course_ she has a crush on Auston. Why didn’t she see that before?

As soon as she says it Auston’s face goes completely blank.

“Yeah, okay,” she says. She puts her hands on her knees and stands up. 

Some very stupid, romantic, watched-too-many-movies-as-a-kid part of Mitch goes all fluttery, like...is this a moment? Is Auston going to swoop in and sweep her off her feet or something? Is this some kind of happily ever after where she kisses her best friend and suddenly everything that didn’t make sense about her life falls into place? Mitch is simultaneously terrified and thrilled at the idea.

But that’s not what happens.

Auston doesn’t kiss her. Auston doesn’t even look at her. She goes over to her suitcase, which is already packed for the flight in the morning, and she picks it up and drags it over to the door.

“I’m gonna go crash with Will,” she says.

“What? Why?”

“I’m not mad at you,” she says, which is a relief because it hadn’t even occurred to Mitch until just now that Auston _could_ be mad at her just for _liking her back_. “I just...I think you need to calm down, or something, I don’t know. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

She leaves without waiting for an answer.

Mitch sits down, and then gets up and walks around the room a couple of times. Does Auston...not believe her? Does she think this is another joke? Mitch doesn’t know what to do. The big bright sunshiny light of realisation is kind of fading and there’s only cold and doubt behind it, and she doesn’t like the way that feels at _all_.

She’s outside Marty’s door before she even thinks about what time it is, or what she’s doing, or whether she remembered to bring her room key with her. It’s just autopilot, like her body goes into survival mode while her brain’s busy flipping out. Marty looks annoyed when he opens the door, but Mitch must look terrible because his expression shifts into concern in an instant.

“I need an adult,” she says, all wobbly like she’s about to cry, and he opens the door and pulls her inside.

She sits down in the end of the bed just in time, it feels like, to avoid her knees giving out. Marty crouches down in front of her and looks worried, but he doesn’t say anything, just gives her time to speak on her own.

He’s the best, Marty. Mitch is so lucky she didn’t fuck up their friendship with that stupid sex thing.

She takes a deep breath.

“Okay,” she says. “You know that time you thought I was trying to come out to you, but I wasn’t?”

“Yes,” Marty nods. Mitch nods back, and frowns, and then nods some more because she feels like she has to do something, she can’t just be still, she wants to bounce off the walls. Her left knee is jiggling uncontrollably.

“Right. Well brace yourself, ‘cause this time I think maybe I am.”

*

Auston sits with Freddie on the bus to the airport, wedged up against the window and staring moodily out of it so Mitch can’t even make eye contact and check if she’s alright. And then on the plane she puts her headphones on and goes to sleep, or possibly pretends to go to sleep, it’s hard to tell. Mitch plays cards with some of the boys and tries to pretend everything’s fine, even though every fibre of her being is screaming at her to go and pepper Auston with affection until they’re friends again.

This might be the one situation where being relentlessly clingy won’t actually help.

It feels like nothing on the plane is quite real except Auston; Mitch can’t concentrate on anything else. She keeps having to ask the guys to repeat things because she’s only half listening, her mind keeps wandering back to Auston saying _I’m not mad at you_ and walking out. Whatever she said, this feels a lot like Auston being mad at her.

But. Marty said she ought to give her some space, let her be the one to bring it up again if she wants to, and that’s probably better than harassing her until she explodes, so. Mitch is doing that. She’s trying.

Auston barely speaks to her for four days and Mitch feels like she’s going to _die_ , but she’s fucking trying.

Finally, on day five, Mitch is alone in her apartment just sort of dicking around trying to work out what she wants to do with her free day when the door buzzer goes off. She’s not expecting anyone, but her building’s got one of those video security things so she can check who it is, and when she goes to look...she doesn’t know what she’s expecting, but it’s not Auston, wearing her hood pulled up over a baseball cap and sort of glaring up at the security camera.

Mitch buzzes her up and immediately starts to panic.

It probably takes about two minutes for Auston to get to Mitch’s door, but it feels like both less and more time somehow, like Mitch is pacing in the entryway for an hour but also like she blinks and suddenly Auston’s knocking on the door.

Okay. Deep breath.

She opens the door and they just stare at each other for a moment, Auston standing out in the hall with her hands jammed in her pockets and Mitch with no fucking idea what to say. _Oh hi, sorry I’ve been so weird for the last few months, turns out I’ve been insanely into you the whole time but I didn’t realise because you’re a girl. My bad._

Looking at her right now, Mitch can’t honestly understand how she missed it for so long. Auston takes her hat off and combs her fingers through her hair like she’s stalling for time. She looks like she hasn’t slept, frazzled and tense and still so stunning Mitch feels completely overcome by it. She wants to throw her arms around her. Instead of doing that she holds onto the door handle, hard, like an anchor.

“Did you mean it?” Auston demands, without any kind of hello.

“You should come inside,” Mitch says, and she’s amazed her voice doesn’t shake. Auston frowns, brow furrowing a little harder.

“Did you _mean_ it,” she repeats insistently. Mitch swallows.

“Yeah,” she says. “Yes, of course I meant it.”

Auston looks utterly lost. She rakes a hand through her hair again and shakes her head. “But you’re _straight_.”

“Can you please come inside?” Mitch scrunches her face up. “I don’t want to have this conversation in the hall.”

Auston nods. But once they’re inside she sits down on the couch, frowns up at Mitch, and says, “You _are_ straight,” at her in this almost accusatory way, like Mitch is trying to trick her or something.

“Um,” says Mitch. “I guess...maybe not.”

“Since _when?_ ”

It’s taking quite a lot of concentration from Mitch to stop herself from wringing her hands, or pacing around the room. Her heart feels like it’s going to burst out of her chest. At least Auston doesn’t look hurt, now, she just looks confused.

“Since...uh, maybe a week ago? Maybe a couple of months? Maybe always, I don’t know. I never really thought about it until…” she trails off.

“Until what?”

Mitch feels her face heating up. She’s probably bright pink and blotchy right now. Super attractive. “Um. You?”

Auston stares at her. There’s this really long silence. Like, super long, long enough to make Mitch start fidgeting again. And then Auston’s face does something weird, and it takes Mitch a couple of seconds to realise…

“Are you _laughing_ at me?”

Auston shakes her head, lips pressed tightly together, but a second later she has to put her hand over her mouth to hold in a spluttering noise.

“I’m sorry,” she chokes out, “but that’s...that’s the cheesiest fucking thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Fuck you!” Mitch exclaims. “I’m trying to do a heartfelt….fucking...confessional here, oh my god.” But her face is breaking into a huge, dumb smile too, and the relief is equally huge; it feels like a balloon expanding inside her chest.

She jumps on the couch on her knees, grabs a cushion and tries to hit Auston in the face with it, but even though Auston’s almost crying with laughter now she manages to catch Mitch by the wrists and fend her off. Mitch fights back but all she manages to do is shove a giggling Auston onto her side and half collapse next to her, with Auston’s hands still wrapped around her wrists.

And then they’re just lying face to face on the couch, with their legs all tangled up together and their noses so close they’re nearly touching, and Mitch abruptly stops struggling or laughing because all the breath leaves her body at once. Auston lets go of her wrists, but Mitch grabs onto the front of her shirt and holds on. Her ass is half hanging off the couch and there’s not really enough room and it’s precarious and kind of uncomfortable, but oh god she doesn’t want to let go.

“I wasn’t laughing at you,” Auston tells her. “Well, I was, but just at the way you said it, not...I’m really...the actual message was pretty great.”

“Yeah?” Mitch says softly.

“Really great.”

She smiles, small and sweet, and Mitch can’t seem to look away from her mouth.

“I’ve never kissed a girl before,” she blurts out.

“What makes you think you’re going to kiss one now?” says Auston, and then laughs at the look on her face. She puts her arm around Mitch’s waist and nudges their noses together. “Kidding.”

“You suck,” Mitch tells her. She does this shaky little laugh. “I’m kind of...not scared, but like...nervous. But excited at the same time, is that weird?”

Auston strokes her thumb back and forth over Mitch’s back, and she can’t tell if Auston’s trying to soothe her or herself. She’s got this soft pink flush high on her cheeks. 

“Me too, it’s not weird.”

“You’ve also never kissed a girl before?” Mitch raises her eyebrows.

“Shut up. I mean I’ve never kissed _you_ before. It’s kind of a whole big thing.”

“Oh,” Mitch says delightedly, and she’s so charmed that she leans in and kisses her before her brain even has time to catch up with her mouth and tell her to overthink it.

It’s not that different from kissing a guy, or at least it’s no more different from kissing any one guy than kissing any other guy is. Auston’s mouth is soft and warm and her arm tightens around Mitch’s waist, and it doesn’t change the world or anything but it still feels really good, still makes her toes curl and makes this feeling like sunshine and champagne bubbles spread all the way down from her scalp to her fingertips, perfect the way every first kiss is perfect.

She makes a soft little sound, mostly involuntary, she’s just kind of too happy to stay quiet, and Auston licks into her mouth all slow and sweet, and runs her hand up her back and down over her hip. Mitch’s shirt is riding up in the back and when Auston’s fingers trail over her bare skin it makes her whole body tingle.

“God, I feel like you should pinch me or something,” Auston murmurs against her lips, and then does this really goofy little laugh. It’s fucking dumb, and incredibly adorable, and Mitch’s heart is beating so fast.

“Kinky,” she grins, waggling her eyebrows. “So should we, like, I dunno. Talk? About stuff?”

“Sure,” Auston says, pressing a kiss against the corner of Mitch’s jaw, and then just behind her ear, accidentally finding the magic spot that turns all her limbs to jelly. Mitch clutches her harder, because she feels like she might fall on the floor if she doesn’t.. “What stuff d’you want to talk about?”

“Well, first of all, I’m about to fall off this couch.”

Auston lifts herself up and pulls Mitch bodily over the couch cushions, so she ends up more or less underneath her, Auston’s dark hair falling down around their faces like a curtain.

“Better?”

“Yep, uh huh,” Mitch says breathlessly. “Perfect.” She winds her arms around Auston’s neck and pulls her down for another kiss, and another, and another, and by the time they come up for air again she’s completely forgotten what she was going to say.

“You wanted to talk about something?” Auston prompts dizzily. Her eyes look all glassy and unfocused.

“Mm,” Mitch agrees, but there just seem like so many better things to do with her mouth than talk, right now. “It can probably wait.”

“Probably.”

They make out like that for ages, lazy and unhurried, until Auston gets too warm and sits up to take her hoodie off. Mitch watches the white tshirt underneath ride halfway up her abs and stops feeling unhurried very suddenly. She surges up onto her knees so she can press Auston backwards onto the other end of the couch, kneeling in the vee of her legs and pressing wet kisses up the side of her neck, dragging Auston’s bottom lip between her teeth. She gets underneath Auston’s shirt and skims both hands up her ribs until she hits the edge of her bra.

“So, ah, where were you thinking of going with this?” Auston breathes, arching her back a little, and Mitch pulls back so she can see her properly. Her cheeks are flushed, her mouth all red from kissing, and Mitch thinks she looks, just, unbearably gorgeous right now.

“Um, well just this is awesome,” she says, and her fingers trace along the band of Auston’s bra like they have a mind of their own. “But like. More than this? Would also be good?” She blushes, because being all vague is stupid, but being clearer feels so… _much_. “I mean, like, sex. If you--”

“Yeah,” Auston says quickly, nodding, “yeah, no, that’s what I was thinking too.”

“Okay, good.” Mitch’s smile spreads sudden and unstoppable, and her heart skips a beat at the answering smile that blooms on Auston’s face too. “Can I…”

Auston sits up a little and pulls her shirt off over her head, tossing it on the floor after her hoodie. She kisses Mitch some more, which Mitch is grateful for, not just because she’s starting to realise kissing Auston is the literal best thing ever, but also because she’s trying to unhook her bra and kind of failing at it. After a couple of fumbles Auston smirks against her mouth.

“Need an assist?”

“Shut up,” Mitch says, “It’s different from this angle.” 

She finally gets it, and the straps slide down Auston’s arms, and Mitch leans back to look at her. For a couple of seconds all she can do is stare.

“You okay there, buddy?”

“Yeah,” she says. “I just...you...uh, wow.”

Auston giggles and flops back on the couch cushions. “You’ve seen me with my shirt off before,” she points out, which is true, but...but now Mitch is allowed, actually _invited_ , to really look, and it’s completely different, like seeing her for the first time. The hard planes of muscle against the softer curve of her breasts that jiggles when she laughs, the indentation in her skin left by the band of her bra that Mitch inexplicably wants to run her fingers over, it’s all new and real and beautiful.

“It’s not the same,” Mitch says, and Auston reaches out for her with both hands.

“C’mere.”

Mitch tries to get her own shirt off so fast one of her arms gets stuck, and Auston has to help her escape, wheezing with laughter the whole time, which, rude. Although the laughing does make her boobs jiggle again which is pretty fantastic. Also she somehow manages to get Mitch’s bra off in the process without her noticing, so she doesn’t even have a chance to feel self conscious about her own flat chest.

“Is that some kind of gay lady witchcraft?” she demands, wide-eyed, while Auston wraps her arms around her and pulls her back down on top of her. “Can you teach me?”

“Sure thing, rookie,” Auston smiles. “All part of basic lesbian training.” And, like, Mitch doesn’t think she’s actually a lesbian, because as frustrating as guys have been she’s still...pretty into them as a concept, even if having miles and miles of Auston’s warm bare skin pressed against hers has very much pushed the existence of men to the back of her mind. But basic lesbian training sounds like fun anyway.

“Oh yeah?” she says, running her fingertips up the inseam of Auston’s jeans. “What else is included in basic training? Not a lot of stick handling, huh?”

Auston snorts. “Depends what you’re into. But I was thinking something more hands on.”

She skims her hands down over Mitch’s back and settles them on her hips, tucks just the tips of her fingers into her waistband, and Mitch feels the tingly swoop of anticipation low in her belly. But...

“Oh hey,” she says, feeling her face heat a bit. “Um, just...like, remember I’m probably not going to come. So. Um. Sorry.”

She’s never said it like that to anyone she was about to have sex with. She usually just doesn’t mention it and lets them assume she did; guys don’t seem all that good at telling the difference between a real orgasm and just, like, making a lot of noise anyway. But she’s tired of being careful of boys’ egos. She doesn’t want to hold Auston at arm’s length like that, and for once she doesn’t feel like she’s expected to.

Auston looks at her for a moment, and then presses a soft kiss to her lips. “Don’t be sorry,” she says. “Just...anything you want me to do or not do, don’t be afraid to say, yeah?”

“Okay,” Mitch says. “Should we, um. The bedroom’s just…”

“You can’t have sex outside a bedroom?”

“No, smartass, but there’s not much room on this couch and if you fall off I don’t want to have to tell Babs I concussed you with my vagina.”

Auston laughs. “I _really_ want to hear you try and say vagina to Babs with a straight face, though.”

“Okay, I really want _you_ to stop talking about Babs,” says Mitch, wrinkling her nose.

“You started it!”

“Babe, I’m trying to start something else now.”

The _babe_ just kind of slips out easy as anything, she doesn’t consciously decide to say it, but Auston doesn’t seem to mind. She just kisses her, smiling softly against her mouth, and says, “Okay, then. Lead the way.”

They hold hands on the short walk into the bedroom, which...it’s dumb, but it kind of makes Mitch’s heart beat faster. And then they get to her room and Auston uses their linked hands to reel her in close so she can kiss her slow and deep against the doorframe, and that _definitely_ makes her heart beat faster.

“This is a look, huh?” Auston says, tugging lightly at the waistband of Mitch’s sweatpants. Both of them are wearing pants and nothing else.

“It should definitely be the new game day uniform,” Mitch says. “I’m gonna start a petition.” She traces her finger along the top of Auston’s jeans where they’re riding low on her hips, and feels the muscle jump under her touch. She can’t tell whether they’re both drawing this out because of nerves or because the anticipation is kind of delicious, but she thinks maybe both. She feels hot and shivery all over as she presses her mouth to the soft skin under Auston’s jaw and unbuttons her jeans. “Think you might look even better without these, though.”

If kissing Auston didn’t feel that different from kissing a dude at first, this part - touching, undressing, anticipating, negotiating - feels so completely different that Mitch feels kind of overwhelmed. In a good way, but...it’s intense. There’s this sense of possibility in every touch, and every pause feels not like a hesitation but like a _question_ that she could answer in an infinite number of ways. With guys it’s always been like...she knows how sex works, there’s a program they’re both going to follow that begins with getting her ready and ends with him getting off. Like, there’s variations, but it’s basically a straight line. But she doesn’t know the program here, and more than that, she’s not even sure there _is_ one. It feels huge and exhilarating, thrillingly new.

But at the same time...it’s just Auston. She knows Auston like the back of her hand, knows the smell of her shampoo and the familiar calluses on her palms and the shape of her with Mitch’s arms wrapped around her. It’s just that now she’s learning the taste of her, and the colour of her eyes up close with her pupils all blown out and dark, and the soft, barely verbal, shivery noise she makes when Mitch slips her hand down the front of her jeans.

“Oh my god, you feel so good,” Mitch tells her, turning her face into Auston’s cheek. Auston threads a hand through her hair like she needs to hold on to something.

“I think that’s my line,” she says, and turns her head to slide their mouths together, open and messy, and Mitch’s entire world is just soft and wet and hot and perfect for a long, breathless moment.

“Pants,” Mitch says incoherently. “why…” She tries to tug at Auston’s jeans with her free hand but not stop touching her or kissing her at the same time. It’s not all that effective, especially when Auston tries to help and gets the giggles instead; she tries to pretend she’s not but Mitch can feel her stomach shake with the laughter she’s holding back. “You’re not helping,” she says, so Auston grins and somehow manages with her gay lady witchcraft skills to get Mitch’s pants off her in two swift movements, just drags the waistband over her hips and they slide down her legs onto the floor.

Mitch looks down. “Seriously, how do you _do_ that?”

“Are those mine?” Auston says, looking down at Mitch’s sweatpants. Mitch, who’s had to abandon her previous activities to struggle with Auston’s skin tight jeans again, grunts.

“Are these _mine?_ ” she shoots back. “I know girlfriends are supposed to share clothes, Matts, but come on. How did you even get these things on?”

“Come here,” Auston laughs, like they’re not already plastered to each other, and backs up until she reaches the bed, pulling Mitch after her by the waist. Mitch finally manages to peel the jeans halfway down her thighs and she sits down on the bed and kicks them the rest of the way off, then shimmies out of her underwear too. Mitch climbs into her lap to kiss her again, so enthusiastically she knocks her flat on her back.

“Hey,” Auston says, and snaps the elastic of Mitch’s underwear against her hip. “This is gonna get in the way.”

“It’s okay,” says Mitch, kissing her neck so she doesn’t have to look at Auston looking at her. Her face feels hot. “You don’t have to. Go there.”

“Um,” Auston says, “I won’t if you don’t want me to. But it’s not like I’d be doing you a favour or something. I’m pretty into it.”

Mitch sits up and bites her lip. “You remember the whole...not coming thing, right? I don’t want you to feel like you’re wasting your time on…”

“Yeah, I know,” Auston says with a small smile, propping herself up on her elbows. “But do you, you know. Like it anyway? Someone going down on you?” Her voice is low, and she trails just the tips of her fingers over Mitch’s thigh, light and idle like she’s not even thinking about doing it, she just wants to keep touching her. She looks up at her under her lashes, eyes dark and warm, and her tongue darts out over her bottom lip, and her gaze goes right through Mitch like a full body shiver.

Mitch remembers that dream and nods.

“Then it’s not going to be wasting my time,” Auston promises, and leans up to kiss her. She rolls them over on the bed, covering Mitch with her warm weight. “It’s really not a hardship. I mean, I’ve thought about this not zero times.”

“Really,” Mitch says, breathless. “That’s...wow, okay, great. Don’t you want me to do you first though?” Just in case, she thinks. She doesn’t want Auston to get bored of her and give up before she’s had a chance to see what she looks like taken apart on Mitch’s fingers, what she sounds like moaning in Mitch’s ear. She squirms a little at the thought.

“Mm, nope,” says Auston against her throat. Mitch can feel the vibration of her voice all the way down her body, heat pooling low in her belly. Auston strokes her fingertips, feather-light, over the front of Mitch’s underwear and her hips lift right up off the bed without any input from her brain. “I’ve heard all your sex stories, remember? I think it’s probably about time you got to be selfish in bed.”

Mitch lets out a shaky little laugh. Then Auston strokes her fingers up the inside of her thigh and she arches her back and turns her head to moan into the pillow. It’s the kind of move that never fails to get a reaction from guys, but Auston just raises an eyebrow at her.

“Hey,” she says, and her voice is low and soft enough to make Mitch’s skin tingle. “I’ve barely touched you yet. Quit trying to give me a show and just...enjoy it, okay? Or don’t, whatever. I’m not gonna be upset if it doesn’t work for you, I promise.”

“Yeah, okay,” says Mitch. She feels nervous all of a sudden, weirdly exposed without the cover of making a bunch of noise over nothing. Sometimes it’s easier to enjoy herself if she’s trying to convince someone else she is. She squirms again. “I want this, I do, but I’m...can I hold your hand or something?”

Auston huffs a little laugh, but she takes her hand and kisses her palm, still trailing the fingers of her other hand up and down Mitch’s thigh.

“Are you nervous?” she says, and something about her voice makes Mitch reach out and comb her hair back from her face so she can see her properly. Auston gives her this look, so uncalculated and soft Mitch feels a bit like she’s cracked something open, seeing something not many people get to see. “I mean,” Auston says, unembarrassed, “I am a bit.”

Mitch kind of gets what she means. No matter what comes next, what they are to each other, what they are together, is going to change. It’s already changed, in ways maybe neither of them fully understand yet. Mitch has had sex make friendships weird before, and who’s to say this isn’t just one more of those? She desperately doesn't want it to be, and she can tell just from the look on Auston’s face that she doesn’t want that either.

And ten seconds ago she was nervous as fuck, but now, knowing Auston’s so serious about this, about her, about them...it’s like a weight lifted off her shoulders and a warm glow in her chest and every other dumb cliche she can think of. She really, really likes this girl. She has for ages.

Mitch smiles and laces their fingers together, giving Auston’s hand a squeeze.

“Nah,” she says. “Not really. Well, except for my general brain health, obviously.”

Auston looks confused.

“I mean I heard you don’t know when to stop until somebody passes out,” she says, making her eyes wide. “So you can understand why I’d be worried.”

Auston’s laugh is loud and startled and beautiful, and Mitch grins back at her in relief and lifts her hips off the bed so Auston can slide her underwear down and off. She grabs her hand again afterwards though, once Auston’s nudged one big shoulder under her thigh and kissed the inside of it. Mitch doesn’t make a noise this time, but she feels it, and her hand flexes against Auston’s palm.

“Well, just let me know if you’re feeling lightheaded,” Auston smirks.

Mitch might be feeling a little light headed already.

*

“You said girlfriends.”

“Hm?” 

Mitch opens her eyes with difficulty. She’s all warm and sleepy, with Auston naked in her bed in the middle of the afternoon, tucked into her side with her head on her chest and Auston’s fingers combing idly through her hair. She feels lazy and loose-limbed and everything smells like Auston and sex and she really doesn’t want to move. It takes her a few seconds to even register what she’s said as actual words, let alone take in their meaning.

“Before,” Auston says, and something in her voice makes Mitch wake up a little more, something a little uncertain. “You were probably joking, but you said...something about girlfriends sharing clothes.”

Mitch props herself up on her elbow. “I mean, I _was_ joking. I meant more...friends who are girls. Which we are.”

“Yeah, of course,” Auston nods. “We’re friends. And girls.”

“But I wasn’t saying we’re, like. _Girlfriend_ girlfriends.”

“Yeah, no, I get it.” 

Mitch lies down again and puts her arm around Auston’s waist, and it’s nice, it’s cosy, but Auston feels more tense than before, somehow, a little stiffer. She fidgets with a wrinkle in the sheets for a moment and Mitch waits, trying not to worry she’s about to get some kind of talk about not taking things too seriously. They never did get around to talking first, but...but she still kind of thought...

“Um,” Auston says at last. “Is there...I mean, do you ever think we _could_ be girlfriend girlfriends?”

She sounds so cautious, and Mitch is wide awake now. She sits up.

“Matty,” she says, trying not to laugh. “Are you asking me if I _like-like_ you?”

Auston looks up at her and rakes her hair back with her fingers, trying to look cool and unembarrassed. She fails utterly. “Fuck off,” she says, blushing. And then a moment later, “I mean, do you?”

Mitch does laugh this time, and leans down to kiss her.

“Oh my god, I can’t believe I ever thought you were cool.” she says, grinning so wide her face hurts. “Of course I do, you idiot. I thought that was obvious.”

“Well, I don’t know, I didn’t want to assume anything.”

Mitch shakes her head. “Alright, well, I’m fine with assuming stuff. So I’m going to go ahead and assume we’re girlfriend girlfriends now, okay?”

Auston blinks at her. “You…but…”

“No buts, we’re dating, it’s decided,” Mitch says, and kisses the end of her nose, which finally startles Auston into a laugh.

“Oh, it’s decided, huh?”

Mitch flops over onto her back and stretches her arms lazily above her head. “Yep, I’m calling it.”

Auston leans over her, eyebrows raised. “Don’t I get a say in this?” she says, and she runs her hand up Mitch’s leg and over her hip in this undemanding, casual way, like it’s just easy and natural to touch Mitch like this now, like this is just how they are together from now on. The same, comfortable as ever, but different. It makes Mitch’s chest feel warm and full.

“You got a problem?” she teases. Auston sighs and lies down next to her, shoulder to shoulder.

“Guess not.”

They lie there in comfortable silence for a while, and Mitch can feel her pinky finger brushing up against the side of Auston’s hand, but she just leaves it there, relaxed and sleepy and so, so happy she feels like she could burst.

“You know,” she says after a while, “I think you were right about me having a type after all. You just got the details wrong.”

“Well, yeah,” Auston says dryly. “I’m not much of a good boy.”

Mitch laughs. “No. But that’s not my type anyway. My type is people who can stay my friend no matter what.”

It’s half truth and half...hopeful. Like, she’s pretty sure they’re going to be okay, that their friendship can last even if _girlfriends_ doesn’t, even if she’s kidding herself about, what, turning bisexual at twenty one after never even thinking about it before. Jumping in with both feet from _first ever crush on a girl_ to _I guess we’re girlfriends now_ in the space of less than a week is probably crazy. But Mitch has never taken anything slow in her life.

“Hm,” Auston says thoughtfully. “Yeah. That sounds like you.”

She reaches over and takes Mitch’s hand. When Mitch turns her head, Auston’s looking back at her with this soft little smile like she’s the best thing she’s ever seen, and Mitch can’t help smiling back, and smiling and smiling.

“Well,” she says. “You know me.”


End file.
